CURB CHAMPS: Cipriani won’t have to do divert its A-grade celebs through this redcarpeted work site after winning its battle over the placement ofamodern newsstand. Photo:

CURB CHAMPS: Cipriani won’t have to do divert its A-grade celebs through this red-carpeted work site after winning its battle over the placement of a modern newsstand. (
)

Victory for Cipriani Wall Street! The city has decided to build a new and shiny newsstand not in front of the venue’s red-carpet ballroom entrance, but on the next block west.

We reported a few weeks ago how the plan to install a Cemusa-designed newsstand in front of 55 Wall St. had enraged Cipriani management and Community Board 1. Both feared damage to business at FiDi’s major venue for glamorous events as well as security risks.

The Department of Transportation dug a rectangular pit in front of 55 Wall where the newsstand — to replace an old one across the street — was to be built.

Cipriani execs took down the yellow tape and orange barrels around it and replaced them with a velvet rope, which continues to guard the hole.

A DOT rep said yesterday the new location “suited all parties.” The sidewalk “will be restored” where the pit now is. Presumably there’ll be no velvet rope to mark the spot.

***

Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty empire is best known for such iconic Manhattan properties as the Seagram Building and Lever House, art-gallery mecca 980 Madison Ave. and the Gramercy Park and Paramount hotels.

But not all its holdings are in the same glamorous league. Among them is 757 Third Ave., the 1962-vintage, 500,000 square-foot office tower at East 47th Street, which RFR bought in 1999 for $102 million.

Rosen wants the world to know the building is no second-class citizen in its portfolio, but a thriving location benefiting from a recent $30 million upgrade.

Some 130,000 square feet of new leases or expansions have been signed at 757 Third in the past year, offsetting more than half of the 250,000 square feet that became available when KPMG, consolidating elsewhere, moved out. About 75 percent of the tower is now occupied.

Rosen said, “We’ve enjoyed great momentum for Third Avenue,” where leasing has been sluggish overall.

“We built a new lobby and entrance, upgraded our systems and basically created a brand-new building,” he said. Asking rents are in the mid-high $50s per square foot except in smaller high-floor spaces, where they’re in the low $60s.

“We treat our tenants the same as we do at Seagram,” Rosen said. “We have a hands-on approach to management whether a tenant pays $50 or $150 a square foot.”

Rosen noted there’s “very little activity” on most of Third Avenue, which he described as “all over the place” in terms of building quality, upkeep and ownership.

Recent deals at 757 Third include expansions by two companies owned by Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, Aerotek and TekSystems, which added a combined nearly 30,000 square feet in separate leases valued at a total of over $16 million.

The tower does not lie within the East Midtown rezoning district. On that topic, Rosen said the proposal now wending its way through New York City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure is so complex, “it’s going to take 20 years for the area to benefit from it,” if it’s approved. (In fact, we suspect it might take 20 years just to understand it.)

Rosen also made a point that’s lost on many who fear up-zoning would darken the area by allowing larger new buildings — namely, that parts of the district are already dark due to full-blockfront addresses with facades of old, dark brick. “Obviously, glass facades will have more light,” he said.

***

Nothing’s easier than rehashing “news” of slow leasing at the World Trade Center.

How many times have we read that Larry Silverstein’s 3 WTC has alarmingly “stalled” at the podium level (seven stories) because he hasn’t found an anchor tenant?

Never mind that the lower floors needed to be built early for infrastructure reasons and the plan has always been to wait on taller construction — as Silverstein and the Port Authority stated years ago.

Now comes word of supposed grim news at the PA and the Durst Organization’s WTC. A story in Crain’s claims, “No office lease has been signed” anywhere at the WTC site “since Condé Nast signed “a deal to lease about 1.2 million square feet at 1 WTC two years ago.”

In fact, in 2012, two big leases were signed at 1 WTC — with the US General Services Administration for 270,104 square feet and Condé Nast, which took 140,277 square feet on top of its earlier commitment for 1.053 million square feet.

Both deals made Crain’s own list of the largest office leases of 2012 — Nos. 12 and 29, respectively.

Although the GSA lease was long in the works, it was by no means a sure thing and — as we reported last summer — required a major push by Sen. Chuck Schumer to get done.

In a market plagued by financial-industry caution, it’s undeniably a challenge to find more office tenants at 1 WTC and at Silverstein’s 4 WTC. But new office projects always look troubled until they fill up — as they invariably do.

***

Rose Associates has snared a $300 million construction loan to complete its conversion of 70 Pine St. into luxury rental apartments.

The lenders are JPMorgan Chase, M&T Bank and Bank of New York. Some floors in the 66-story Art Deco landmark will be finished by June 2014, and the whole project, spearheaded by company co-President Adam. R. Rose, is to be done within three years.